Oceans
by Bandwardcontest
Summary: Edward travels from stage to stage, city to city, always singing for the sad, lonely girl who taught him the meaning of music. Seven years of silence separate them, but he won't let go of the hope that some way, somehow, she hears him.


Pairing: Edward/Bella

Genre: Romance, Angst

Summary: Edward travels from stage to stage, city to city, always singing for the sad, lonely girl who taught him the meaning of music. Seven years of silence separate them, but he won't let go of the hope that some way, somehow, she hears him.

Word count: (not including header) 7979

Disclaimer: The author does not own any of the publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended. 

NOVEMBER 2013  
><em>Tell me where did you sleep last night?<em>

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night? 

The buzz of his cell phone against the nightstand is like a jackhammer pressing against his skull. Edward slides an arm from under the sheets and tries to grab it, but his hand knocks it onto the sticky carpet of the floor.

"Fuck," he groans, rolling over - only to be met with naked breasts and long blonde hair framing them. "Fuck."

He clambers out of the bed, squinting as the room begins to spin. The walk to the other side of the bed alternates between a shuffle and a series of lurches, and he has to use the wall to convince himself he's actually upright. The buzzing starts up again, the threadbare carpet doing nothing to dull the sound.

The cheap wooden nightstand is unforgiving against his knees as he topples into it, and he curses for a third time, even louder and angrier than before. He brushes aside a red satin bra, picking up his phone to see Emmett's name on the screen, his stomach churning as he does so.

"What?"

"Where are you? We're supposed to be meeting with that manager in twenty minutes. Everyone else is here."

His eyes open wide for the first time that morning as he looks to the flashing red numbers on the clock - except it's not morning. It's afternoon, and he's in deep shit.

"I'll be there, okay?"

"Edward..." That disappointment eats at him, makes him feel worse than the hangover creeping up his spine.

"Look, I said I'll be there. You're wasting my time."

He disconnects the call and picks up his jeans, shoving his legs through the fraying denim. His t-shirt is worn-soft and probably smells like last night's sin, but he has no choice but to wear it.

The lights of the bathroom are harsh, casting his bloodshot eyes into sharp relief against the sallow skin of his face. He splashes water onto his cheeks, wishing for toothpaste.

The girl is still spread eagle on the bed when he walks back into the room, the sheet barely covering her unclothed body. He throws her clothes to the side, looking for his wallet and jacket. When his fingers brush the foil of a condom wrapper, he's not sure whether he feels disgust or relief.

He settles for feeling nothing.

When he's collected his things, he walks out of the motel room door and into the afternoon gloom without looking back. 

APRIL 2006  
><em>There's something about the look in your eyes<em>

_Something I noticed when the light was just right_

_It reminded me twice that I was alive_

Echo - Incubus 

"You are so not doing that at prom."

"Of course not. Prom is nowhere near big enough. I was thinking more some kind of awards show. I'll do it when we win Best Video. Or Best Song."

Her laugh is husky. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm just saying." He kisses her forehead, between her eyebrows, down the slope of her nose.

"The MTV awards are shown across the world. I kiss you up on that stage, everyone will know you're mine."

She runs her hands up the slats of his spine, her fingertips skimming his bones. "Yours?"

"My girl."

"You think I'll still be your girl once you're out there for everyone to see, all rich and famous?"

He kisses her hard then, hating the taste of doubt on her tongue. His fingers brush her hair away from her face before he wraps his palm around the side of her head. When they finish, he props himself up on one elbow and stares at the girl before him. Shy, sweet, soft. Vulnerable.

Hurting. Strength beyond anything he's ever known, so beautiful it blinds him. The weight of his heart in his chest tells him all he needs to know.

"Yeah, Bella. You'll always be my girl."

DECEMBER 2013

_I'm standing on a stage_

_Of fear and self-doubt_

_It's a hollow play_

_But they'll clap anyway_

Arcade Fire - My Body Is A Cage 

There are too many bodies. They can't move so instead they writhe, skin sliding against skin, sweat-damp and gleaming. They blur and merge into one heaving mass, one cavernous mouth ready to swallow him whole. There are no white lights, not in a place as small as this, but he feels blinded anyway. They're so shiny, the people, so bright. He sees no faces, just the pressing and rubbing of limbs and torsos, just the frenetic shift of energy that feeds him.

The riffs get louder, the screech of feedback tickling the hairs on the back of his neck, and he shuts his eyes against the trickle of sweat rolling down his forehead. He's lost to the pulse of the crowd, giving himself over to them. He rests his forehead on the microphone, wrapping one hand around it as he reaches the other out to the front row. His fingers shake, but he's not sure if they're trembling or vibrating from the deep bass behind him.

The words he sings when his cue comes may as well be in a foreign language for all the sense they make to him, but the band is still playing, so he sings on. The music thumps and pounds, and he's almost yelling. When the crowd yells back, he feels it deep in his chest.

And when it's done and over and the lights darken even more, he's the first to leave the stage.

He leaves the others to lap up the applause and cheers while he stumbles down a dark hallway, drifting until he finds the next stage in a few days.

Life is like a wave he rides, floating and sinking and sometimes drowning, but the music pulls him back. Now that she's gone, it's his only anchor.

It always pulls him back.

It has to.

JUNE 2006

_The way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine_

Hozier - Cherry Wine 

"You don't have to eat this shit, B. I know it's fuckin' awful." He throws the sandwich down into the grass, hating that he can't even give her this. The lunch was more necessity than anything else, meant to enable them to hole up in a clearing away from the world for a while. He'd made the mistake of telling Bella he'd bring food, and suddenly she was asking him if they were going on a picnic with undeniable hope in her eyes.

So they're on a picnic.

"Did you make them?"

"What?"

"The sandwiches. Did you make them?"

His smirk is wide. "You think Ma would ever make something this bad?"

"You have a point."

"Exactly."

She perseveres, though, eating a whole half of a sandwich before moving one of her hands to cover his. He curls his palm into hers, twists their fingers together.

"I can't believe you're eating that. I brought chips too, if you want those instead."

"I don't want the chips."

"At least the chips won't give you salmonella."

The look she shoots his way is pure attitude. "I don't think peanut butter can give you salmonella."

"The way I put those things together, I'm thinking any and all of it could poison you."

"Edward!"

He mock-shudders as she picks up the sandwich and takes another bite, glaring at him while she does so - for the whole time it takes her to eat it. And considering he somehow managed to forget the jelly aspect of the PB & J and there must be a whole half-cup of peanut butter sticking to the roof of her mouth, that's a pretty long glare.

Edward knows he'd be impressed if he wasn't also horrified, though the horror recedes when her tongue comes out to lick her dry lips.

When she finally finishes the sandwich, she grabs one of the bottles of water before sinking almost the entire thing. "Jesus, that was awful."

"I told you!"

"Yes, and you also told me that you made them for me."

"So?"

There's something in her eyes he can't name. "You made them."

"Yeah, which is why they're terrible."

She shakes her head. "You made them for me, Edward." The air between them seems to shift, becoming charged as her shoulders sink slightly. "I can't remember anyone making anything just for me before."

He swallows because his throat is tight, because sometimes he forgets how little kindness she's seen. "Yeah, Bella. I made them for you."

Her hand squeezes his just as she leans forward on her knees to press her lips against his.

"Thank you," she breathes. 

JANUARY 2014

_Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load_

_I'm too young to feel this old_

Kings of Leon - Cold Desert 

He hates the afterparties.

There's no record label throwing money at them to relax after a show. Just Jasper, Emmett, and Paul dragging back whatever groupies they find that night into the dressing room if the bar has one, or to whatever shitty corridor they can find if not.

The girls are always so brazen, so quick to undress. Some wait until after the first drink to make their move, but most don't bother. Instead they sink to their knees and let their lips do their talking, and that's all the conversation the men need. Edward usually looks away and studies his beer instead, lost in thoughts of song choices or arrangements for the next show. Tonight though, one of the girls refuses to leave him alone. She crawls into his lap in a way that feels like she's crawling all over his skin, suffocating him. He shoves her away gently at first, but she keeps coming back, her small hands grabbing at his fly. He's two beers past coherent, and it feels like he's moving in slow motion while the room tilts all around him. He pushes at her hand that's still grappling with his zipper.

"No," he says, but it's slurred and jumbled.

"Shhh," the girl replies, and suddenly his jeans are open and her hands are inching toward the waistband of his boxers.

He stands unsteadily just as she leans up on her knees, his knee smacking her in the cheek as the rest of his body stumbles into her. The girl cries out as she falls down onto the sticky carpet, her body twisting painfully as she smacks into a table on the way.

Edward blinks, bleary-eyed, and reaches out a hand to help her. "Shit, shit, sorry." His tongue's too big for his mouth, and his words don't make sense. He can't quite see straight, but he sees well enough to know she flinches.

Flinches from him.

Like he'll hurt her.

He doesn't know if it's the beer or something else that makes his stomach lurch.

"Edward, what the fuck, man?" Paul shoves his way past, crouching by the girl.

"I didn't mean to."

Emmett comes over and pushes Edward back as the girl's helped to her feet, her face covered in black trails of fear.

He did that, and he can feel it eating at his insides.

"Didn't mean to," he says again, staring at Emmett's hazy face in front of him. "Fuck, didn't mean to."

"I know, Ed," Emmett replies quietly. They're the closest of the band members, Emmett bailing him out when he gets too drunk or pushes things too far. He's never seen Emmett look like this, though - too serious for after a show, too sad. It makes Edward feel stone-cold sober.

"I fucked up."

Emmett claps him on the shoulder. "She'll be okay."

"I fucked up," he says again, his voice gritty. "With Bella."

He feels Emmett freeze next to him.

"I miss her."

"Ed..."

"Every second of every day, even up on that stage. Like a fuckin' piece of me is gone, I miss her. I don't have anyone to sing to now."

"You sing to people most nights," Emmett replies gently.

"Not to her. Never to her, not now."

"But still to people, man. And they love it."

Edward just shakes his head and shrugs his shoulder, dislodging his friend's hand. "They're not her. I see her sometimes in the crowd. I thought I was going crazy at first, like I'd missed her so much my mind had turned on me, but it was just memories. Of her at my shows, her face smiling at me as she mouthed the words."

He feels like he's in pieces.

"I gotta go," he tells Emmett, staggering toward a door that seems to be shifting.

Emmett calls out from behind him, but he keeps walking.

Alone.

As always. 

JULY 2006

_I can't see nothin', nothin', round here._

_No, you catch me when I'm fallin'._

Counting Crows - Round Here

"Where's B tonight?" Jasper asks as Edward paces down the dank hallway, one hand clenched in his hair.

"Said she'd be here later."

"She'll miss the show? That's shitty. Think she's been at every show."

Edward's fist clenches tighter. "Yep, every one so far."

"Hey, don't let it get to you. We can still go out there and kill it."

Considering they're stuck using a back-up guitarist and drummer, in addition to the fact Jasper's guitar case got dropped on a concrete floor, Edward doesn't think they'll be 'killing it'. Murdering the songs is much more likely.

"Fuck."

"Hey, you're up," a bouncer at the end of the corridor shouts.

They make their way toward the stage, a tiny little raised platform at the end of a big room in the Port Angeles Community Center. This local showcase is a big deal for their band, even if it does only consist of him and Jasper right now.

The biggest show they've played so far, and his girl isn't here to see him.

He still looks for her when he steps out onto the stage, scanning the crowd for any hint of her.

There are girls staring at him, smiling when his eyes catch theirs, but his just skitter on past in their search for Bella.

He doesn't find her.

Singing to a crowd that she's not in seems wrong, like he's off-key and out of tune, like everything's off-kilter. Everyone's watching him, waiting, and none of them have love in their eyes like his girl does. There are bored faces as they launch into Machinehead by Bush and his fingers wrap tighter around the microphone stand. "Breathe in, breathe out," he sings to the audience and screams to himself.

Heads turn as he hits the chorus, the rasp in his voice catching on the words and turning them into something visceral. The crowd grows as they get further into the song, and by the bridge, they're singing the words along with him.

So many faces turned toward his, pleading for more, but none of them are the one he wants to see, and if he can't see her face, then he doesn't want to see anyone's.

He screws his eyes shut.

They only open again when he hears 'Edward!' shouted above the strains of Round Here. For a second, he thinks he must be imagining what's before him, but it's still there after he's finished blinking.

Bella, front and center, holding a bright pink sign with 'Edward Cullen is my rock star' written in stark black marker. He fumbles the line, he's laughing so hard, but it's okay, because his girl is here to watch him.

His eyes stay open for the rest of the set. 

MARCH 2014

_Hold on to the thread_

_The currents will shift_

_Guide me towards you_

_Know something's left_

Oceans - Pearl Jam 

The lights are glaring as he stands before the microphone, burning white circles in his vision, and still his eyes find her.

His eyes always find her.

He saw her three shows ago. He always sings with his eyes shut, the final barrier between him and the crowd when he's laying his heart in their waiting palms. This time there had been the slightest twitch of his eyelid, just for a flicker of a second, and his eyes had caught and held on her. She was tucked away in a corner that should have been too dark to see into. Her skin shone pale even in the shadows, and he couldn't look away. He'd stumbled over the words to a Soundgarden song he'd learned years before, thankful Jasper's guitar was loud enough to smooth over his mistake.

She had dark hair that bled into bright red at the ends, the color clashing with her hidden position. He couldn't see the shape of her body or the clothes she wore, but he could see her eyes locked on him. His throat felt dry, even drier than usual, and he had to pause to take a sip of his beer before he could come back in to sing the bridge. They played their normal set - shifting from Nirvana to Alice in Chains, from The Black Keys to Kings of Leon, and through it all, he could feel her stare. He tried to keep his eyes closed, willed them not to open, but they kept finding that dark corner.

They kept finding her.

It's a different bar this week, yet she's still in a little alcove by herself. A movie his mother used to watch comes to mind, one where a man refused to let his girl sit in the corner, and suddenly he understands it. This girl shouldn't be confined to dark places.

The crowd is screaming at the stage, their bodies one big rolling, shuddering mass as the set progresses. Emmett's bass to his right feels deeper than ever before, Jasper's guitar to his left is clean and tight, and Paul's drums at his back are pounding out the rhythm of each song.

They're setting the place alight, and he feels the flames lick his skin as he rasps his way through Cochise by Audioslave and on into Alice in Chains' Grind. Through it all, his girl is still, and he starts singing louder, clutching the microphone and bending into it until it's just another limb.

He stands on the stage, one fist raised in the air as he closes up Oceans, voice cracking and breaking on the high notes, and there's a wall of sound surrounding him.

"I will be there once more," is when her eyes finally, finally meet his. It's too dark to see, but he knows her eyes are blue. Indigo, like water after a storm, like sea waves rolling. Then he's swimming in the oceans he's singing of, and he feels the current tugging at him, shifting, something inside him tumbling before it aligns again. He holds the note, holds her eyes, and he's shaking as the crowd screams. His girl turns and makes her way out of the bar just as the bass begins its closing section.

It's only when the last notes fade out that he realizes he hasn't closed his eyes once. 

AUGUST 2006

_We all have a soft spot_

_For miracle cures that we hope keep coming_

We Are Scientists - You Should Learn 

She moves through the too-long grass like a breeze. The busted off-white fence stands behind her, a pile of scrap metal to her side. She's surrounded by dead plants and the dead dreams of a home. Her feet are bare and covered in dirt, but she just keeps spinning around and around as the sun shines on her skin.

"Again."

"My voice is gonna wear out soon."

Her spinning slows. "Please?"

He sighs, sitting up from where he was lying in the bare earth by the broken porch. Bella loves to hear him sing, anything, any time. Usually he just lets her sit in on band practice so she can get her fix, but the shadows under her eyes seem a little darker today.

So he sings.

Random choruses, couplets he thinks are special, bridges and sometimes just single lines.

She loves it all, her head tilted back and a wide smile on her face. Sometimes she sings along.

Sometimes she just dances, but she always smiles. It makes his heart ache a little, the sight of sheer happiness settling in to her beautiful face.

She floats around the big yard and over to him, her skirt brushing the back of his arm.

When he sings the first verse of Nutshell by Alice In Chains, she stills and drops to her knees behind him. He falters as her arms wrap around him tight. She rests her forehead on his shoulder and whisper-sings the next line.

"And yet I fight, this battle all alone, no one to cry to, no place to call home."

Her voice is so thick it smothers him, and he can hear the hitches in her breath.

They sit like that for what feels like hours, his heart breaking, her arms still around his torso.

Her body curves over his, still slightly tense. She always holds herself up, his Bella, always too careful not to ask for too much or give herself over too fully.

Except now, when his hands grip onto hers wrapped across his stomach. She shudders, sighs, and then she gives in. Her body weight falls onto his upper back, pressing him forward, but he doesn't let it rock him.

Her kiss is wet against the back of his neck. "I'm not alone now."

"Bella." His hands hold hers tighter.

"I don't have to be alone anymore."

"Not ever again."

They sit in the wasteland of Bella's yard until it's almost time for her dad to come home.

He turns so she's huddled into his chest, wishing he could shield her from the shit he knows is waiting for her tonight. "You better get home, B."

She hums, content, head rearing back to look at him. "Funny," she whispers. "I was just thinking I already am." 

APRIL 2014

_You told me you loved me, that I'd never die alone_

_Hand over your heart, let's go home_

Kings of Leon - Cold Desert

He shouldn't have chosen this song.

Jasper and Emmett argued against it. They already have some Kings of Leon in the set, and they don't know the chords for this one all that well. Edward fought for it, though, a passion they hadn't seen in him for years. They agreed, working hard before the show to learn it all by heart, but they're still unsure of how it'll sound. The start is hesitant, and the crowd before them feels it. The energy in the room loses some of its intensity, but he can't focus on that. He's focused on the dark corner his girl seems to find no matter what bar they're singing in.

She's been more animated this week, nodding her head when they covered Incubus and Ben Harper. They've been slicker tonight, the band, moving into a new level of playing. The atmosphere is electric, the give and take like static sparking. Maybe that's what gave him the confidence to try this one, or maybe it's that he's had months of watching a girl who haunts his heart and disappears like a shadow when he's finished singing.

The poor start turns into something better as the band finds their rhythm. During the instrumentals, he closes his eyes, building his strength to lay himself bare.

And then it comes, the section that made him choose this song. He holds his girl's eyes as he sings to her about home. For a minute, as his voice melts into a soft edge, he feels that old connection with her, as if a thread has wrapped around them both and ties them together.

It's so strong, that tie, like a knot too tight to ever be untangled. Years between them fade to nothing as he wraps his heart around each word, offering himself to her, praying that his penance is paid. He's been in hell so long that the sight of her face is a heaven he isn't sure he still deserves, but one he knows he can't live without any longer. Her hand creeps up to cover her heart, just like the song.

The words tear from him now, loaded with his pain of missing her. Too late, he remembers the end verse, hating the way her hand turns to a fist when he sings _'does nobody know, nobody see'._

The spell is broken, and once again her secret sits between them, blocking their paths to one another.

All at once, her head drops, her stare breaking, and he feels cold. Then she turns.

The song isn't over; the set isn't over, but she turns her back anyway.

When he watches her leave this time, he isn't sure she'll be back.

SEPTEMBER 2006

_You're all I want, bring me the dawn_

_I need the sun to break, you've woken up my heart_

James Bay - Need The Sun To Break

"You were amazing tonight."

He smiles, because there's nothing like his girl loving his music. "I'm just glad we've got Emmett now. His bass is insane."

"Not them, Edward. You were amazing."

They're in a dimly-lit hallway of a bar they're not old enough to be in, the stench of stale beer all around, and yet when her lips meet his, it's still sweetness like he's never known.

"You're always amazing."

"Bella," he whispers, a plea, a prayer, a promise.

"I'm in love with you, Edward," she whispers back. It should be bliss, hearing her say those words, but she says it like a curse.

He can't breathe.

"I'm so in love with you." Her eyes are wide, her face pale, and he hates that she's scared of this.

"Don't be scared."

She does this weird laugh-sob that makes his chest tight. "I'm terrified."

"I lov—"

"No!" she shouts, too loud, too tense.

His head recoils, eyes searching hers.

"Don't... don't say it back. Please don't."

"But I do, Bella."

She nods, then shakes her head, then nods again. Her eyes are glassy. "People don't love me."

Her words leave him winded. He rests his forehead against hers.

She makes a noise of protest at the back of her throat. "You can't love me. Everyone who loves me hurts me."

"I won't hurt you."

"Everyone hurts me, Edward."

"I won't."

She falls into him, trembling. He sifts a hand through her hair, tugging on the ends. It's soft, just like the rest of her.

"My mom loved me once," she says, and his hand stills. He's never heard Bella talk about her mom.

"She did?"

He folds her up in his arms and holds her. "I'm sorry, Bella."

"I didn't hear that music again until you."

He could swear his heart stops beating. "Me?"

It hits him then, why she always asks him to sing, why it makes her smile like she never does otherwise. And it cuts him, right down to the bone, because he knows what's coming next.

"So you see why you can't love me? I already lost that once, except with my Mom I don't think I ever had it. Not really, not if she'd leave." She peers up at him, her eyes burning bright into his.

"But with you, I have it. And I can't lose it. I can't."

He wants to say he can't see it, that it doesn't make sense. The desperation in her tone stops him.

"Okay, Bella."

She sags in relief.

He cups the back of her head in his hand, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "Just so you know, I plan to not love you for the rest of my life."

Her hand finds his, holding on like it's a liferaft.

He thinks that to her, it just might be.

JUNE 2014

_The silence of a falling star_

_Lights up a purple haze_

_and as I wonder where you are_

_I'm so lonesome I could cry_

Hank Williams - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

The music isn't the same without her.

It's like a wound he stitched up and forgot about, not having her there to see him. Having her presence again for the past few months was a balm, erasing the gunshot of too many crowds she wasn't a part of, endless songs she wasn't around to hear. Now that she's gone again, the stitches have been torn open, and he can't believe he ever forgot how much it hurts. It's always been his solace, but it feels different now. The words he sings are lyrical memories spilling forth like the prayer of a priest, searching for guidance, searching for something more.

He doesn't find it.

Instead he slumps into autopilot, working through old set lists and not taking risks. The band at his back is still sharp, their fans still growing and supporting. They play all over the city, in bars he'd aspired to, and his first thought in each one is to look for his girl.

He never finds her, not in any of the dark corners, and for the rest of the set, he keeps his eyes closed.

Which is why he misses her seated at the bar for each show, watching him, aching for a reason she doesn't want to explain.

He's lost his soul. He doesn't feel the words, just sings them.

Tonight's the worst. He forgets words and misses cues, rakes his hands through already-chaotic hair. The set lasts an hour, until the band has given all they can and his voice is hoarse, and then the music becomes slower. His throat is raw, but he knows this song's words like the back of his hand. He lives these words. He bleeds them. They're ripped from him, scattered and spread across the stage. The crowd is almost still now, an unnatural hush that makes his voice echo around the small space. He worries he's lost them, that it's the wrong song, but by the second verse, he can feel their acceptance like an embrace.

His eyelids are shut so tightly, blocking out the lights and the crowd and the world, she wonders if they'll ever open again. She remembers him singing with his eyes open, locked directly on her.

I'm so lonesome I could cry.

She leaves before he's finished again.

His dead voice follows her outside and makes her shiver even in the warm summer air. She should never have broken his heart. She never should have left him. She shouldn't have done a lot of the things she did, and she didn't do a lot of things she should have. She'd been living inside that pain for so long, trapped in the web of it, and Edward was the only shimmer of something good.

And she let him go.

Because she was scared and broken and thought she'd been betrayed by the only person she'd ever trusted.

Because she couldn't see that he was saving her.

So she let him go.

She wanders through the dark, busy streets, lost inside her own head. She's been in the dark her whole life, it feels like.

It's time to come into the light.

NOVEMBER 2006

_When you reach the broken promise land,_

_Every dream slips through your hand_

Willie Nelson - Across The Borderline

The phone's shrill ring slices into his dreams. He reaches out a hand and tags it, bringing it to his ear.

"'lo?"

"Edward?"

He's disoriented and dazed, still caught up in a dream world of Bella, so when he hears her voice, it takes him a second to place the tone.

Thin. Hushed. Weak.

Frightened out of her fucking mind.

"What's wrong, B?" he asks, even though he knows. These phone calls are always the same, coming in the dead of night. While the rest of the world sleeps, his girl is living a nightmare. She'll call and sob and sigh, and he'll sing Wonderwall or Nothing Else Matters until she's soothed enough to sleep.

It's not enough, for him or for her.

"He's drunk."

He smacks his head back into the wood behind his bed. "Baby."

"Edward, I'm scared," she says in a small voice, like a child waking up from a bad dream.

But Bella doesn't get to shake off her demons by waking up, and it kills him.

"Baby," he repeats, because he can't say anything else.

His hand curls into a fist when he hears shuddering breaths amongst the crackle of the phone.

She cries like she talks during these calls, defeated and exhausted. He hates that her dad has the power to do this, to turn his girl into someone he wishes he didn't recognize. Things are good between them, the rush of first love sweeter than ever. He's collected every smile she's given him, every kiss they've shared, and he's stored them in the nervous knots that his stomach ties into whenever she's near.

But even with all that precious affection between them, this is always lurking in the background, this sour side he can't escape.

"He hurt you, B?"

She's silent too long.

"Bella."

"He... he pulled me out of bed by my ankle. I hit my head on the nightstand, hard." More shuddering breaths, more quiet little sobs that make him feel like he's splitting at the seams. "It hurt, Edward. It really hurt."

He can hear just how much it hurt by the way she says it, and suddenly he's done. He's been done for a long time, fucking forever, but now he knows he's hit his limit. He can't listen to his girl cry over a phone line anymore, can't pretend her bruises will fade faster if he kisses them, can't take the way she trembles if he moves too fast.

"I can't do this."

He waits, but she doesn't speak.

"I can't keep waiting for a phone call to hear how you're hurt this time."

Nothing.

"I can't sit here and think that one day there might not be a phone call because you're hurt too

badly to make one."

Her breaths aren't shuddering anymore. They're horrible gasps, so deep he knows they have to hurt.

"But you're home for me, Edward. You're home."

The tears in his eyes are from anger, from sadness, from regret. "I'm home, Bella. And for once, you need to have a safe place you can call home."

He knows the moment she realizes.

"No, no, no."

"I have to tell my parents. You can come live here until senior year is done, okay? We'll work it out, Bella. I promise you. But I have to tell them."

"He's my dad."

"He's a drunk."

Her gasps are louder now, impossibly loud. "He's my dad."

"Bella, I have to—"

"He's my dad, Edward! You can't!"

The rage that's been simmering under his skin for months boils over. "Yeah? Was he your dad when he was dragging you across the floor by your ankle, not giving a shit what happened? What about the time he threw the beer bottle that left your arms full of glass? Or when he made you hold your hand in the oven because his dinner was cold and he wanted to make sure it worked? Was he your dad then, Bella? Was he your fucking father then?"

He's breathing heavily, too worked up to notice his mother standing at his doorway, one hand over her mouth.

"You said you loved me," Bella replies, sounding as tortured as he feels.

"I love you enough to have kept this shit under wraps when I should have been telling everyone and getting you out of there." Guilt turns his insides to ribbons, tiny pieces thudding around inside him. He swallows. "I love you enough that I've been breaking my own fucking heart trying to keep yours together. I love you so much that I'm about to break the only shred of trust you've given me, just so I can keep you safe. You told me I was home, and that meant something to me. I can't keep quiet anymore."

"He's my dad," she says desperately.

"I know, B. And I'm sorry." So sorry that he can't even put it into words. Bella's been betrayed by everyone, left by her mother to a father who cares more about alcohol than her, ignored by teachers who should've asked if she really was that clumsy, and now she's going to be betrayed by him. He's been torn over this for so long, stuck between some kind of fucked up right and wrong, convincing himself that if he just holds on, it'll get better.

If anything, it's gotten worse. Bella could have cracked her head open against the nightstand, and he'd never have known until the next day when his phone calls went unanswered. Just the thought has bile racing up his throat, and he struggles to swallow it down.

"They'll take him to jail!"

I fucking hope so, he wants to say, but he's said enough.

"Just... just give him one more chance, okay? Just let me try to keep the house clean and..."

She trails off, still gasping and scrambling for excuses, but hearing her even insinuate that she might be to blame for her father's behavior just convinces him that he's doing the only thing possible.

"He's had the last seventeen years of your life to be a good father, Bella," he says softly. She's had enough hardness, his girl, too many rough edges wounding her already. "He isn't going to change, baby, as much as it fucking kills me to admit. He isn't."

"Shouldn't I get to say whether I can live with this?"

"Even if you can, I can't."

There's nothing but breaths between them, harsh and angry. Fitting, given it's her dad pushing them apart. "I won't talk to you ever again if you do this, Edward. This will be the end."

Those tears push at his eyelids again. "I know. I think I've always known. But I can't let that stop me anymore. I love you enough not to let that stop me."

There's silence for a long, endless minute, and then a whisper full of pain. "I don't want to hear your music anymore."

Then he hears the flat, dead song of the dial tone, and he doesn't want to hear his music anymore either. 

JULY 2014

_Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise_

_I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you_

The Civil Wars - Poison and Wine

She couldn't find the right shade of pink.

She wanted neon, just like all those years before, but she had to settle for a muted magenta.

The black marker was easier, though its lines aren't so dark when the hand drawing them shakes. The security guard outside the venue gives her an incredulous look when he sees the sign. She doesn't have it in her to care, too full of nerves and butterflies she thought had died years ago.

The bar is packed full, thanks to word of mouth about the band's potential record contract. To her, they'll always be the boys she watched in a garage, their fingers bleeding across guitar strings.

Her fingertips curl around an edge of pink card.

She has to push her way through the crowd to get close to the front, but finally she makes it just as the support act is closing up.

The sign stays rolled up tight as she waits for the announcer to call out the band. When he does, the name he calls steals her breath, just like always.

Bella Cuore.

Beautiful Heart.

She'd seen it in a local paper in an article about a local tour with a special homecoming show.

Her heartbeat had slowed and almost stopped as she'd read the words.

Edward was back.

And even after all these years, he'd kept her name. Even after she was forced to live with an aunt, clinging to misplaced hurt rather than to the boy who loved her. He'd sent a letter a month or so after she'd finally settled into a life she didn't recognize.

She'd cut her finger trying to open it and smeared blood across the stark white paper.

Dark mess against the light.

Dirty, sullied bright, turned to rust.

Edward and her.

The chair beneath her rocked so badly under the force of her trembling, she slumped onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor instead, feeling coldness seep through her. The wet of sadness in her eyes washed away anger she'd felt because it was easier than fear.

She was so tired of being scared.

He'd written that he missed her. He'd forgotten the words to her favorite song when it came up on the set list of a recent show, and he'd wished she was there to mouth the lyrics to him. He said he wished she was there, period.

He told her about new shows he'd played, the new semester at school. The band were slowly building a following now they had a new drummer. Edward was on track to start advanced classes soon. His life sounded so normal, so happy. So foreign to her. It became less reading what he'd written and more reading between his lines. He was coping, while she was shattered into so many pieces she'd never find them all to put back together. His world continued to turn, while hers had come to a grinding halt.

The letter ended with him saying he was sorry, that he loved her. She was the addendum in the letter of his life, the bad news being given after the good. She knew it wasn't an afterthought that had him writing those words, but she felt like one anyway. All that promise in his life melting into hurt she'd caused.

She wanted to be the happiness, not the sad endnote.

She especially hated that he'd written that he was sorry, because he had nothing to be sorry for.

He had nothing to love her for, either.

Her fist clenched around the paper so tightly that it creased and tore, all scrunched and ugly, just like her - crumpled and screwed up, then smoothed back out. But the marks were still there, like she didn't know how not to settle back into those folds, into that sad safety.

She was bruised and battered by life, scared and scarred, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd be nothing but a burden. Edward was made to have a beautiful life. He was so bright, so talented, a bird meant to soar far past Forks and on to bigger things.

She was just the albatross around his neck.

So she'd written back on paper so covered in tears it should've crumbled into nothing, just like she had. Three words, in scrawled blue ink, half-smudged by droplets of pain that rolled from her jaw and on to her desk.

Don't write again.

She pressed her lips to the paper over and over, crying like she was dying, because she knew something inside her had burned out. Something she hadn't even known was there, but losing it was unspeakably painful and so sore she could barely stand it.

Hope.

That tiny spark of hope in her stomach had been stomped out until not even the embers were intact, and she didn't think there was enough kindling in the world to make it light again.

He'd never contacted her after that. She moved out of her aunt's house as soon as she could, working hard to make it through college on her own and later on into a dead-end job.

Through it all, she'd never forgotten the boy she'd loved when she was seventeen. Not for a second.

The announcer's voice calling the band on to the stage shocks her out of the pain of the past and into the terror of the present. Jasper and Emmett come out with their hands up, acknowledging the crowd's cheering, but Edward gives nothing more than a nod as he moves toward the middle.

He doesn't look at her once. He doesn't look at anything but his microphone, and even then she isn't sure he really sees it.

Emmett sees her just as they're preparing to start the first song. She freezes as he stares, looking her up and down, but his face slackens into something soft before she can start to worry. He nods, his mouth turned up at the ends, and something inside her relaxes.

They play mostly originals this time, a change aimed at enticing the label scouts that have been present at their gigs for the last few months. She's heard them perform countless times, heard Edward sing even more, and his voice still burrows its way inside her. It makes her warm, and she remembers in an instant why she loved him before.

She isn't sure if she ever stopped.

Edward's eyes are closed even as he speaks to the crowd, his head down, and more than anything she needs him to see her. He's always seen her, even when no one else wanted to.

So when the next song reaches its instrumental, she unfolds the sign, holding it high, and calls his name.

She's too scared for it to be all that loud, but his head snaps up like she'd screamed it. Their eyes meet and hold; then his drift up to the pink card above her head. She wonders if he'll remember those same words on a sign years ago, before their lives fell apart.

His smile is an absolution.

He closes his eyes again, though this time it's only to blink away the tears she sees gleaming.

Hers are already rolling down her face.

When he starts singing again, his voice is almost otherworldly. He has the tone of Chris Isaak, the rasp of Eddie Vedder, the range of Josh Homme, all tied together by something distinctly Edward. The people all around her are absorbed in it, but she's only ever been lost in him.

The rest of the set is almost too good. The band are note-perfect, each of their instruments played with precision and just the right amount of attitude, and Edward's finally singing like she remembers. When the set's over, he leans back to talk to Jasper, Emmett, and a man she doesn't recognize. Jasper's eyes shoot to her, his mouth slightly open. Then he's smiling too, and she feels her heart clench.

Everyone except for Edward leaves the stage. He comes to the front, head up, eyes trained right on her.

"I'm going to do something solo. It's a cover of The Civil Wars."

He ducks his head bashfully as the screams of the crowd echo around the bar. She doesn't recognize the band or the first notes of the acoustic guitar. He plays softly, singing almost without music.

Then he hits the chorus, and the world is falling down all around her. There's only Edward and her, only this moment, only this perfect passage in time meant just for them.

"Oh, I don't love you but I always will."

He sings it over and over.

A promise.

A vow.

She doesn't know what will happen next, whether they'll be able to bridge the gap of everything that's come before, whether she'll ever be able to make up for being young and terrified. But she knows that she desperately wants to, and she knows from the words he sings that he wants that too.

He remembers - her, them, the love they always had. And the way he kisses his hand before he points to her as he sings the chorus for the last time tells her that love is still between them.

She sings with him.


End file.
